Ubisoft Announces New Guitar Game, Internet Mystified

Will Rocksmith deliver a music game that actually teaches you how to play a real guitar? Survey says...

Here’s an odd announcement. After Activision abandoned their rhythm game properties due to a steep decline in sales, here comes Ubisoft to announce a brand new guitar-peripheral franchise: Rocksmith. Maybe Ubisoft sees the death of Guitar Hero and DJ Hero as an opening that they can fit through to get a share of that cheddar the music genre has brought companies like Activision and Harmonix in the past. However, statistics have proven that this genre as a whole is knocking on death’s door. Innovation has been light, and people are sick of buying new plastic peripherals that months later stack in the corner of their house and make for awkward doorstops.

But Ubisoft is aiming to deliver with Rocksmith where games like Power Gig: Rise of the Sixstring failed. Namely, Rocksmith will, in theory, teach gamers how to play a real guitar by using an actual guitar as the game’s controller. Players will use an adapter to connect their guitar to Rocksmith on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The game will come with 45 songs pre-loaded that range from bands such as the Animals, the Black Keys, David Bowie, Interpol, Nirvana and the Rolling Stones.

You’ll also be playing notes in Rocksmith, not color-coded keys. Difficulty will be determined by the type of song and how well you can keep up with it. The game will then scale the difficulty on the fly depending on those factors. And finally, Rocksmith will include a Practice mode for you to loop sections and adjust speed to learn new tracks, as well as master previously unbeatable sections.

Official pricing is still up in the air, but the Hollywood Reporter is claiming that Ubisoft is in negotiations with Gibson to produce a $200 bundle that comes with the game and a Gibson electric guitar.